The day after December 26, 1991, the World woke up on disconcerting news: an“Islamic Fundamentalist”, or so labeled, legal political party, namely the IslamicFront for Salvation or FIS, won a landslide victory in the first fair, transparent, multiparty, parliamentary elections Algeria ever had.

This second massive win of FIS, a year and half after the municipalities elections, contradicted all thepredictions of the Algerian militaries, and its foreign allies, to the point that theregime took the responsibility, with the blessing of major western democracies, toend the democratic process few weeks later, in January
11, 1992, engaging the country in a bloody civil war Algerians are yet struggling to heal its wounds. The argument given for the military coup was that the Algerian people weremislead by FIS and hence democracy needed to be protected, at any cost, from Islamists and their alleged infamous motto “one man, one vote, but one time”.